Marked By COVID, in partnership with The Floral Heart Project, is hosting a floral artwork installation and digital display to honor the more than 16,000 Arizonans who have died due to COVID-19. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

Juliette McMullen dances behind photos of people who lost their lives to COVID-19 at a Marked by COVID event at Arizona Heritage Center at Papago Park in Tempe, Ariz. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

The memorial at the Arizona Heritage Center featured a four-foot floral wreath arranged artistically in the shape of heart. On Monday, March 1, 100 Floral Hearts were laid across the US to recognize the lives lost due to COVID-19. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

Photos of more than 50 Tempe residents who have died due to COVID-19 from the virus are displayed at Arizona Heritage Center at Papago Park. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

Family members of those who died of COVID-19 hold up photos of their deceased loved ones at a Marked by COVID event at Arizona Heritage Center at Papago Park in Tempe, Ariz. on March 1, 2021. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

Todd Bailey shares the story of his aunt Kathy S. Jones, who died of COVID-19 this past summer, at a Marked by COVID event at Arizona Heritage Center at Papago Park in Tempe, Ariz. on March 1, 2021. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

Loved ones of those who have died from COVID-19 gathered at the Arizona Heritage Center in Tempe, Arizona Monday in honor of COVID-19 Victims and Survivors Memorial Day. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

Molly Stothert-Maurer, the associate librarian and head of library & archives at Arizona State Museum, is working closely with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to digitize the historical recordings that date back to 50 years ago. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

The archives located at Arizona State Museum serve as a time capsule from 50 years in the past, and some of the interviewees in the recordings were even born before 1900. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

Founded in 1893, Arizona State Museum in Tucson, Ariz. is the oldest and largest anthropological research museum in the U.S. Southwest. The Arizona State Museum is located on sacred land that has been home to Indigenous peoples for 13,000 years. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

The oral recordings include interviews with native speakers and live broadcasts of public events, songs and dances. These records from 50 years ago are essential to the efforts of language preservation and documenting history. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

In 1967, the Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History was established and funded by Doris Duke, and it provides access to interviews from 1967-1972 conducted with Native Americans regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

The Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History at Arizona State Museum has hardly been touched over the past 50 years. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

This massive revitalization project will allow tribal communities to have the opportunity to reunite with their past loved ones by listening to these recordings. Stothert-Maurer specifically reminisces on a situation where the grandchildren of an interviewee had the opportunity to hear their loved one for the first time in 50 years. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)
and emphasizes how this particular project will assist tribes to preserve their culture and heritage. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)

Arizona State Museum functions as the state of Arizona’s official archaeological repository with its 38,000 cubic feet of archaeological research materials. (Sierra Bardfeld/Cronkite News)